


The Body

by emmbrancsxx0



Series: Halloween Horror [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Autopsies, Castiel's Loss of Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Dead People, Fluff and Angst, Halloween, Happy Halloween!, Haunting, Horror, M/M, POV Dean, POV Dean Winchester, Season/Series 15, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-12 22:31:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21233627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmbrancsxx0/pseuds/emmbrancsxx0
Summary: A hunt leads Dean and Cas to the morgue to inspect the corpse of a mysterious Jane Doe and they soon find it's no ordinary body.





	The Body

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the Autopsy of Jane Doe on Netflix and this is kinda/not kinda inspired by that. I was assured this was spooky, but it kinda turned into something angsty and semi-fluffy. Hope it scares the pants off you though, which was the intended goal. Happy Halloween! Hope it's extra sPoOpY.
> 
> (Also, sorry about any typos/grammar errors. I wanted to get this out before Halloween but, in typical Mallory fashion, I procrastinated until the very last second. So this is un-beta'd and just barely edited lmao)

Sammy was giving his best puppy dog eyes at the young woman on the couch across the coffee table from them. Maggie Fox seemed a little skittish, but Dean guessed he would be too if he came home from college for the weekend and found his parents’ bodies lying in the hallway.

Except, he didn’t have parents anymore, and they’d both died a lot more horribly than that—one of them twice.

And, oh yeah, he never went to college.

Still, he got it. Finding your parents dead wasn’t a postcard experience, especially when it was still so fresh in mind, like it was for Maggie. And for himself.

“Maggie,” Sam said, voice gentle like he didn’t want to spook her even more.

Her eyes, wide and reddening, had been fixed on the entrance of the living room, looking out to the front hall. They rapidly blinked and glanced back at Sam.

So far, her story had been the same thing she’d told the cops: she was a junior at UNC Asheville, she was coming home for the weekend with a bag full of dirty clothes to do laundry and to visit with her parents. But, when she walked into the front door, her parents were face down on the rug, cold and stiff to the touch, and shriveled up like prunes. She’d found something else, too. She called 9-1-1 immediately.

“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your parents?”

Maggie’s face skewed up in confusion. “Hurt them?” She echoed.

“Yeah, any enemies? Maybe they’d argued with someone?” Sam supplied, and Maggie seemed to consider it for a second. Poor girl’s head must have felt like it was on backwards. 

“Well,” she started a little unsurely, “when I was a kid, there was this lady in the PTO that hated my mom because everyone liked her homemade biscuits and jam better. But . . . Mrs. Calloway couldn’t do anything like this, right? She teaches yoga.”

Dean and Sam shared a look. It was pretty safe to say they could rule that one out. Jam feuds really weren’t a reason to brutally kill someone—but, then again, this was the suburbs. And the southeast.

As Sam continued to ask questions, Dean caught movement in the hallway in the corner of his eye. It was just a quick flash of tan. He looked over, watching the line of Cas’ shoulders move as his back was turned to Dean. Cas had been tasked with checking out the crime scene. He crouched down to the bare wooden floor, his elbows resting on his knees as he peered into the grated vent built into the molding. 

Honestly, Dean didn’t even know why he was there. This was a normal hunt. It wasn’t anything Sam and Dean couldn’t handle alone. They could really use someone back at the bunker keeping an eye on more important things—like where the hell Chuck was and how the hell they’re gonna kill him. But if Cas ended up finding anything that was, gee, let’s say, worth mentioning, there was no telling whether he’d actually fill them in or not.

Dean realized his jaw was tensed because his teeth started to ache. Cas straightened his posture out a little bit and then paused. He must have sensed Dean staring at him, because he started to turn his head. Dean abruptly turned back to Maggie, just in time to hear Sam ask, “And that other woman—the one you found in the kitchen. You told the police you’d never seen her before?”

Cas was looking at Dean now. Dean could feel it. He forced himself to look straight ahead and act cool, but his heart was hammering and his skin was flushing. He shifted in his seat a little, hoping to get more comfortable without letting Cas know he was uncomfortable in the first place.

Maggie shook her head. Her skin was pale and blotchy now, and a tissue had appeared in her hand. She must have started crying at some point while Dean wasn’t paying attention. “I have no idea who she was,” she said. “She was just there—dead.”

“Any idea how she may have gotten here?”

“No, I—I don’t—.” She sniffled again, tears tracking down her face. “It’s just too much. First Angie and now—.”

“Angie?” Dean asked. 

“My cousin,” she said, voice cracking over the words. “She lived with us.” She glanced at the mantle over the fireplace, where a picture of four smiling people—Mr. and Mrs. Fox, Maggie, and a blonde girl who must have been Angie—was placed in a frame next to an urn. “She was—um. She died in a car crash last month.”

“Those are her ashes there?” Dean pointed towards the urn.

“Uh-huh.”

He knew what Sam was thinking before Sam even said, “Did Angie have a good relationship with your parents?”

“Oh, yeah,” Maggie said. “The best. They were like, her parents, too, you know? We were—,” she sniffled, about to crack again. “We were a family.”

Dean couldn’t stop himself before his eyes flickered back to Cas.

“Okay,” Sam said sympathetically. “Thank you, Maggie. I’m sorry for your loss.”

She nodded quickly and looked away, obviously not trusting herself to speak without breaking down. Dean and Sam both stood up, and Dean pulled at his tie a little to straighten it back out. He wanted to offer the girl a comforting smile to tell her she’d be alright, but she wasn’t looking and, if she had been, he really didn’t know if he would have meant it.

They walked into the hall, where Cas was touching his hand to the wood beneath the staircase, his eyes closed.

“Anything?” Sam asked, his voice low so Maggie wouldn’t hear them.

Cas opened his eyes with a sigh and dropped his arm to his side. “No,” he said, orienting himself to face them—well, to face Sam. His shoulder was still kind of half-turned in Dean’s direction. “I can’t sense any EMF, or any signs of demon possession here or in the kitchen. There aren’t any hex bags I could find, either.”

“So, there goes the witch theory,” Sam griped. 

“Still can’t rule out some kind of monster,” Dean said, directing it at Sam, but it was for Cas, too. Just like everything Cas had said was to Sam while also for Dean’s benefit. They’d been doing that a lot lately.

Sam shook his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, but what kind of monster sucks a person dry? All the blood and water was gone. Their organs were practically raisins. I’ve never seen anything like that that wasn’t witchcraft. Plus, there’s the Jane Doe. What, a monster just dropped some random body in here? She didn’t even match the other vics’ cause of death.”

“Then how’d she die?” 

“ME’s still working on it,” Sam said. 

Dean nodded, and then half-turned to Cas. Because he could talk to Cas if he needed to. He was an adult. “Okay, anything else?”

Cas glared at him, knowing what Dean was really asking. “No.” 

“You sure? Didn’t find anything that could be relevant?”

“No, Dean. There was nothing.” His voice was cold, hostile. 

“Good, ‘cause I’d hate for someone to die because you decided to keep something to yourself.” 

Cas bristled, and Sam puckered his lips and threw his hands up in silent suffering. Dean immediately turned on his heels and started out of the house. He didn’t think he’d been too harsh. It was a valid concern. 

A second later, Sam and Cas followed after him, and they were outside in the relative chill of the front yard. Fallen, dried leaves crunched underfoot as Dean headed towards the Impala parked on the street. All along the block, houses were decorated with plastic skeletons and blow up ghosts. One house had their walkway lined with jack-o-lanterns. Pretty soon, kids would be going from door to door in their costumes, clutching their candy bags. Dean found it kind of tough to get into the spirit this year, which sucked because it was his favorite day of the year—and it was probably going to be his last Halloween ever since Chuck decided it was time for a rewrite. 

“So, what now?” Dean asked when Sam had fallen into step next to him. 

“I was thinking I’d go see if I could dig anything up about our Jane Doe. Check some missing persons, hospital records, maybe. Could be a lead there,” Sam said. “And you and Cas can go to the coroner’s and see what the autopsy determined.”

Dean stopped walking and grabbed Sam’s arm to make him stop, too. Sam’s brow furrowed and he looked down at Dean’s hand like he had no idea what he’d just said to warrant that kind of reaction.

“Me and—Sam, come on,” Dean said, dropping his voice. He paused momentarily as Cas walked around them briskly and stomped the rest of the way to the car. Dean licked his lips as he eyed him, and then looked back at Sam. “Why can’t you go with him?”

Sam wrinkled his forehead in skepticism. “You wanna do research?” 

“What? No!” Dean grunted. Sam was doing this on purpose. “Cas can go with you. It doesn’t take two people to check out a corpse.”

“Uh, it kinda does, Dean. It’ll be good to have a second set of eyes to see if the ME missed anything, especially Cas’ eyes. He can help.”

Dean rolled _his_ eyes.

“And plus,” Sam said, flattening his lips into a kind of annoyed smile. “I’m sick of playing monkey in the middle with you guys. And he’d just complain about you the whole time.” At first, Sam had tried the whole, _cut him some slack, Dean, he’s doing his best_, shtick. He’d given up on that weeks ago. Now, he was just fed up.

“About me?” Dean echoed, blanching. “He’s the one who—.”

“Save it, man. I’m done,” Sam interrupted. “Complain about each other to each other.” He walked away, and Dean gaped and sputtered after him as he watched Sam open the passenger side door. 

Great. As if this Halloween wasn’t disappointing enough.

///

After dropping Sam off at the Macon County library, Dean and Cas spent a tense, to say the least, car ride over to the coroner’s office. The highway cut right through the Smokey’s, which were lit up with oranges and reds that swayed in the breeze in the setting sun, and the mountain kept interfering with the radio signal, so they didn’t even have music to drown out the awkward. And Dean wasn’t about to ask Cas to rifle through the cassette tape box because that would actually require talking to him, and Dean had already done that once today. 

Besides, the car ride was only about fifteen minutes, and it would probably take Cas twice as long to pick out a tape. He always picked each one carefully out of the repurposed shoebox to inspect the front covers and scrutinize the back label of the case to see if there were any songs he wanted to listen to. It took forever. He was so indecisive when it came to that stuff, and he always got huffy when Dean tried to rush him. And Dean did that on purpose, because Cas would get this frustrated little line between his eyes that never failed to make Dean grin just a little and . . .

Dean was mad at Cas. He abruptly reminded himself of that.

Cas had lied to them about Jack, and it got Mom killed. Just when things were getting good. Just when they were all together and a family. And, worse yet, instead of coming to Dean and Sam like he should have, Cas tried to get Chuck’s help—and look where that got them. 

Cas should have known better. He should have trusted Dean.

Usually, when anyone or anything else pulled that kind of crap, Dean could let it go. Mostly because he could kill the thing that did it. But this was Cas, and Dean couldn’t shake the pain. Maybe it hurt more _because_ it was Cas. Because they were supposed to be past this. They were supposed to be on the same team. They were supposed to trust each other. 

They were supposed to be a lot of things.

Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe that was all part of Chuck’s grand story and all this hurt was for nothing. Dean didn’t even know anymore.

So, no, Dean couldn’t let it go. He’d never been able let Cas off easy. Until, eventually, he did. Every time. But Dean just didn’t know if he could do that this time.

The coroner’s office was across the highway from a rickety gem mine tourist trap, where parents took their kids to sift through overpriced buckets of dirt with planted rubies and amethysts to make them feel like the pioneers of old. Dean had taken Sam to one when he was a kid and, while Sam had fun then, he’d probably roll his eyes at it now. Briefly, the thought popped into his mind that Jack might like going there, and it was like a punch to the gut that he quickly and categorically ignored.

As Dean pulled into the parking lot, he wondered if it would be fun for him and Cas to swing back around tomorrow if they had the time. Cas usually humored him with that crap. But a person probably shouldn’t have such wholesome fun with a guy they’re pissed at, so he kept his mouth shut.

As Dean got out of the Impala, he looked down at his phone. He barely had any service—only one bar on the 1x network, whatever the hell that meant. All he knew was it was basically good for jack shit. The only place he could get any real service around there was in the heart of town where their motel was, but they probably wouldn’t be at the office for very long, anyway. 

There was only one other car in the parking lot, and there was a friendly, smiling scarecrow propped up to the side of the door, a few pumpkins of various sizes at its feet. “Oh, come on. That’s lame,” Dean complained. “The place is a damn morgue. They can do better than that.”

Cas was standing behind him, waiting for Dean to open the door, and he didn’t offer his opinion on the matter. Dean glanced over his shoulder briefly, but Cas didn’t look back at him, making his expression sour. And really, the decorations were the least of his problems.

He reached out to pull back the door, but all it did was rattle a little. Dean tried pushing instead, even though the little sign above the handle said _pull_. That didn’t work either. Dean grunted in frustration.

“It says _pull_,” Cas pointed out.

“Yeah, thanks, Cas. I know it says _pull_.” 

He tried to pull again. It budged a little, but not by much. He was starting to the think they’d locked up for the night when someone suddenly appeared inside the glass, making it heart skip a beat because he really hadn’t expected to see anyone. The woman was wearing a white lab coat that was stained with some kind of brownish substance that Dean really hoped was coffee but probably wasn’t. She reached out with both hands and pushed the door open with all her strength.

“Hi. Sorry about that. It sticks,” she said, giving them both a bright smile.

“I can see that,” Dean answered, trying not to be embarrassed by the fact that he couldn’t even open a door. He cleared his throat. “Are you Dr. Forrester?” 

“Yeah. What can I do for you gents?”

“We’re agents Cash and Nelson,” Dean said, reaching into his suit’s breast pocket and pulling out his fake ID. Behind him, Cas did the same. “Our partner called you a little earlier today.”

“Oh, right, about the Jane Doe. Weird one, isn’t it?” Forrester said, wiggling her brows a little with delight. 

Dean nodded slightly. “Weird’s kind of our thing.”

“Right, well, come on in,” she said, stepping to the side and waving them into the small lobby area. A few chairs and a table with magazines stacked on top were there, and Dean thought that was a little silly because the only reason a person would be in a coroner’s office would be to identify a body of a loved one, and he didn’t really think they’d be up for reading last month’s edition of _Vogue_ while they waited. 

As they followed Forrester through the different hallways of the office, Dean put on his best authoritative voice and asked, “Have you figured out a cause of death yet?” 

She shook her head. “I sent some blood samples to the lab in Asheville to see if they could come up with anything, but so far, nothing. She doesn’t have any trauma, no contusions or wounds. I didn’t see any signs of a heart attack or a stroke, not like something like that would be common for a girl her age. As far as I can tell, there was no cause of death.” 

As they turned a corner, Dean glanced up at their warped reflection in the half-dome security mirror on the ceiling, his eyes on Cas, trying to gauge if he was confused, too; but Cas had his head turned towards the walls and closed doors as they walked down the hall. Forrester brought them to a room at the end of the hall and pushed through the double doors. The room was pretty standard—some silver tables and a work station with tools and a sink, a big dry erase board with marker smudges staining the white, a large fridge over in the corner to keep samples and organs inside, and then there were the refrigerated doors for the bodies. The room was about ten degrees colder than the hallway. 

“But she is _dead_, right?” Dean said, just to make sure. 

Forrester laughed a little. “Wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.” She went up to one of the drawers and opened it, pulling out the shelf with a full body bag. She unzipped it a little and pulled back the edges to show the corpse’s face. The woman looked like she was in her early to mid-twenties, with flawless, white as ash skin pulled tight over her high cheekbones and dark brown, almost black, hair as a shock against the pale. He could only see her face, and it didn’t tell much of a story on first inspection. 

“You still don’t know who she is?” Cas asked, his head tilted to the side as he stared down intently at the woman, like she was about to open up her eyes and tell him who she was and what happened to her. He was hovering close to Dean’s shoulder, and when he shifted slightly, their bodies brushed together. Cas always gave off this kind of warmth, like standing next to a fireplace. All that light inside of him burning and burning like a sun, but it was homey and comfortable, safe. Dean always gravitated closer to it, even now, even when it felt like there was more distance between the two of them than ever before. 

“No clue,” Forrester said with a thoughtful hum. “I think the police were circulating her photo, but as far as I know, no one’s come up with anything. And I’ve never seen her before, so she can’t be from around here. It’s a pretty small town.” 

Suddenly, there was a squeaking of hinges, and all three of them looked up to find one of the doors to the room open a crack. Dean felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, automatically getting himself ready for a fight.

However, Forrester just sighed. “Sorry, there’s a draft. Every door in this place does that sometimes.”

Dean let his guard down, and turned his attention to her again, getting back to business. “Do you mind if we took a few minutes to check out the body?” 

“Oh, no. Go right ahead. Obviously, no one’s claimed her, so we’re hanging on to her for a few more days before bringing her to the cremator downstairs. Anyway, the rest of my report’s on the desk if you need it. But it won’t really tell you much,” she told them. “But I can’t stick around. Gotta go take my son trick-or-treating.” She grinned at that, eyes twinkling with both pride and exasperation. “As much as I’d _love_ to just go to sleep. You ever have one of those days when you just can’t get out of bed? And then you drink ninety cups of coffee but nothing works?”

“You have no idea,” Dean answered.

“Anyway, I better go. Jake’ll throw a fit if I don’t get there soon. He’s turning three this year, and, I swear, when they’re that age, you love them, but sometimes you just wanna kill them, you know?”

Dean felt a muscle jump in his jaw as he tensed it, something cold slithering through his gut.

Next to him, Cas’ warmth was ripped away as he stepped back suddenly, putting space between them again. “He knows all about that,” he said, seething. Dean slid his eyes slowly over to him and shot him a warning glare.

Forrester didn’t seem to notice the tension. “Oh, do you have kids, agent?”

Dean looked back at her, not really knowing what to say. His gut was churning with all the ugly feelings he could possibly think of. “No,” he decided on saying, keeping his voice even. “No kids.” 

He felt Cas squint at him angrily. 

Forrester blinked, a little thrown. She opened her mouth and stammered a little. Before she could form a coherent thought, Dean shepherded her towards the door. “Go ahead, Doc. We’ll be fine here. A boy needs his mom, right?” He annunciated the last bit a little too much, and he could practically feel the temperature of the room drop another degree with the stony way Cas was regarding him.

“Okay, agents,” she said, already slipping out of her lab coat. She tossed it over the back of her desk chair and plucked her jacket from a hook. “Have a Happy Halloween. Just make sure you lock up when you leave.” She flipped her hair out from under the collar of her jacket and made for the exit. She was halfway out of the door when she poked her head back in and said, “Oh, and agent? Put some muscle into it when you open the front door next time.” 

Dean felt a rush of embarrassment redden his ears, but she was gone before it got too bright. He looked over his shoulder at Cas, but thankfully Cas hadn’t been paying much attention. He was looking down at the body again, both of them motionless. 

“Alright, let’s get to it,” Dean said, walking back over. The sooner they finished this, the sooner they could get back to using Sam as a buffer again.

They carried the body over to one of the silver slabs in the center of the room and unzipped the body bag the rest of the way. Just like the girl’s face, the skin on the rest of her body was clean and flawless. She barely even had any birthmarks that Dean could see, but he didn’t look that hard. Even though she was dead, it still felt like a weird invasion of privacy to have some naked chick right out there in the open, even if she was cold and pale and looked a little bit like a wax doll at this point. 

There was stitched up Y-incision on her torso, so Dean figured they wouldn’t have to do much digging around inside. Thank fuck. He checked the normal stuff on the outside—looking for vamp fangs, touching his silver knife to her skin, spritzing some holy water on her just to be safe. There was nothing.

While he did that, Cas went over to the fridge and pulled out the containers and baggies with her organs and blood and tissue samples. He placed them on the second metal table and began inspecting each organ in turn, narrowing his eyes every now and again to see better. He was looking for any weird markings or sigils carved into the organs, but he must have not found anything because he didn’t say anything.

But, then again . . . 

“Anything?” Dean asked after a couple minutes, once he was satisfied the girl before him was just a normal run of the mill human.

Cas didn’t answer. He was holding a spleen in his hand, and turned it over to look at the other side.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Cas?”

“No,” was the simple answer. 

Sighing, Dean said, “Yeah, me either.” He looked down at the girl’s face, wondering who the hell she was and how she got herself into this mess. His gaze flickered over her paled, blue-tinged lips and hollowing cheekbones, her dulling hair.

“You know, she’s actually kinda hot,” he mused aloud, just to see if it’d get a rise out of Cas. “You know—for a dead girl.”

He heard Cas let out an exasperated breath as he let his arms drop down to the table. “Dean,” he warned.

Dean tried not to laugh in victory, happy that Cas had played right into his plan. “I’m working,” he defended. He let his eyes trail down the rest of the corpse, ignoring the awkwardness and sense of wrongness tickling the back of his head, because he was a professional and this was his job. He scanned for anything that might give away some clue as to what killed her, but he didn’t find anything until he landed on her feet.

His eyes snagged on the discoloration blooming on the side of her ankles. Deep purples, blues, and blacks spread out, and her feet were swollen and puffy, the anklebones bulging out a little. He knitted his brows together and walked to the other end of the table to get a better look.

“Hey, did Forrester’s report say anything about broken ankles?” he asked.

He felt Cas look up at him. “I don’t think so. Why?”

Dean hummed. He doubted any ME with half a brain could have missed something like this. “Check this out,” he said, and Cas was already walking towards him to take a look for himself. 

“Were these bruises there before?” he asked, seeming a little perplexed. Dean pursed his lips and shook his head, trying to think back. They’d unzipped the body bag, and he didn’t remember noticing them before. Maybe he’d just overlooked them, but they were pretty obvious.

“They must’a been.” They looked a little fresh, so it must have happened right before she died. “Maybe the bruises are just popping up now? Is that a thing that can happen after death?”

“I have no idea.”

Dean gently picked up one foot and pressed his finger into the flesh. It felt stiff, like touching a callous, but he could feel the broken bones beneath shifting. He just didn’t know what had broken them.

“You think whoever killed her couldda done this?” he asked. “To make sure she couldn’t run?”

“Maybe,” Cas allowed. “But we still don’t know what killed her.”

“Yeah, or how. It’s not like people can die from a broken ankle. Or I wouldda been dead like—forty times over by now.”

“I think you already have been.”

Dean snorted out a laugh, a smirk lighting his lips, because Cas had a point there. Cas looked up, catching his eyes. The blue of them were glinting a little, like they did whenever he managed to make Dean laugh with the dry, fucked up humor he has. Like he was kind of surprised, and just a little bit proud, that’d he’d been the one to make Dean laugh.

That look always made Dean’s stomach flutter. Doubly so now, because he hadn’t seen it in months.

But the butterflies shuddered and died when he remembered why that was. 

His smile faded, and he saw something like realization flash in Cas’ eyes before he looked away. Dean cleared his throat and looked back down at Dead Girl’s ankle. He set it down on the table.

He had to get out there, before he did something stupid like forgive Cas.

“Check the other vics. See if they’ve got the same breaks,” he instructed while pulling out his phone. There was zero service. The whole morgue was dead zone, so he had the perfect excuse to go outside. “I’m gonna call Sam and see if he was able to dig anything up.” 

He didn’t wait for a response before starting out of the room.

“Okay,” Cas said behind him, voice soft. And then, quickly after, “Dean—.”

Dean paused. Cas had said his name so urgently, and stopped so abruptly, like he’d changed his mind while in mid-syllable. Dean looked over his shoulder, waiting, heart speeding up a little in anticipation.

“Never mind,” Cas said, and Dean really didn’t know what else he’d been hoping for.

Wordlessly, he left the room and started down the hall, not stopping until he got to the reception area and had to shoulder the door open. He made sure not to shut it all the way so he could get back inside easily.

The air outside was gray with dusk as the sun dipped down low over the mountains. It was barely seven o’clock, but it was already pretty dark out. A few threatening black clouds had rolled in overhead, and the fresh, crisp chill was oxygen thin. This kind of weather always made Dean sleepy, muscles lethargic and eyelids heavy. He wanted to curl up somewhere warm and settle in for a movie marathon, and he could already picture Cas coming in with a bowl of popcorn and a six-pack as Dean loaded up the first DVD into the television. It’d been their routine for so long that neither of them even had to say anything anymore. They knew their tasks, just like they knew which armchair the other would sit in without a word.

Dean had always found comfort in that, but it was actually a bad thing. Because they were so used to not talking that neither of them said a word when they probably should have. Because the whole silent thing only worked when the two of them were on the same page. Now, they weren’t even on the same chapter, and there was nothing to say.

He held up his phone, and had to walk halfway across the lot, where the Impala now stood alone along the cracked tar, before the little 1x service signal appeared on his phone. Quickly, he called Sam, and held his breath as it took a little longer than usual for the call to connect. Eventually, it started ringing, and Sam picked up with a quiet, “Hey.”

“Hey. Find anything on Dead Girl?”

“Nothing,” Sam said, his voice still low, so he was probably still in the town’s library. “No missing persons matching her description from anywhere around here. What about you? Any idea how she died?”

Dean shook his head on instinct, and said, “Still looking. There was something, though. Looks like somebody broke her ankles right before she died. They’re all bruised up." 

“What?” 

A gust of wind blew through the parking lot, bringing with it a few stray raindrops that splattered across Dean’s cheeks. There was the sweet smell of burning, like smoke from a chimney or a campfire. Underneath, there was ripe smell of decay from the falling leaves and dormant, ashen tree trunks.

“What about the other two victims?” Sam asked.

“Cas is checking them now. Just wanted to give you the latest, but service sucks around here so I had to come out to the parking lot.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Well, keep me posted. I’ll switch gears, look into any other deaths that might match up.”

“Alright. Call you back when we have more.”

Dean was about to hang up, just in time, too, because the misting of rain was starting to turn into a light drizzle. But then Sam said, “Wait, hey, Dean?” 

Dean pressed the phone back to his ear. “Yeah?”

Sam was quiet for a few seconds, and Dean didn’t know if he was hesitating or if the call had dropped. He was about to check his service when Sam continued, “How’s it going with you guys?” 

Dean rolled his eyes and let out a breath, frustrating spiking. “Peachy, Sam.”

“Neither of you has . . . you know? _Said_ anything?” 

What the hell did he want them to say? “Not really our style.”

“Yeah, but—.”

Dean didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted to finish up so they could kill whatever monster this was, and then he’d be able to go home and sleep. “Drop it, Sam. I’m serious,” he warned, putting on his most authoritative big brother voice, which only had about a forty-percent success rate since Sam hit puberty. 

Luckily though, Sam did what he was told. “Fine. Call me later.” 

Dean hung up and headed back inside just as the rain and wind was picking up a little. All the lights in the reception area were off, except for the blue glow coming from the screensaver on the desktop computer behind the desk. The weak pewter light coming in from outside barely did anything, but Dean noticed a stand near the couches with a little one-cup coffee maker, and a few paper cups stacked next to it. He made for the machine and flicked it on, picking up whatever generic brand coffee they had to offer and sticking it in. 

As the machine whirled and gurgled, Dean rubbed at his eyes, trying to wake himself up.

There was a soft pattering noise coming from somewhere behind him, and he reflexively pulled his hand away and glanced upward at the ceiling. The rain had picked up pretty quickly to be slapping against the roof like that. 

And then, just like that, it stopped.

The coffee started splashing into the cup, and Dean shook his head a little, telling himself that he had bigger issues than the rain. He watched the stream of brown liquid rush out until it slowed and spit a few final drops. When it was finished, he pinched the rim to avoid burning his hand and lifted it up.

The rain was sounding off again, the rhythmic beat of it like running footfalls. He glanced out the window, watching the water streak and pebble on the glass. It still looked like it was only drizzling, but he didn’t think much of it.

He took his coffee and went back through the door into the hallway, sipping on his drink until he reached the examination room.

Cas had pulled out the two drawers that contained the other victims. The wife was all zipped up, and Cas was standing over the husband, the body bag closed except for the bottom section. It was folded back to reveal the leathery, sallow skin of the legs from the knee downward. It looked a little like the guy had been mummified.

“What d’we got?” Dean asked before the doors even fully swung closed behind him. 

“Neither of them have the same wounds.”

Dean let out a “humph” sound as he settled across the drawer from Cas. He peered down at the guy’s legs to get a look for himself. The skin was stretched and wrinkled from a total lack of hydration, but there weren’t any bruises. 

“So, we got jack shit?” he clarified.

“Essentially.” 

Dean sighed. Really, he was starting to think this was just some average human case—bizarre, sure, but not their kind of bizarre. “Maybe one just isn’t our thing,” he said, and Cas glanced up at him in question. “There were no hex bags, no signs of ghosts or anything supernatural. I think we should just pack it in and leave it up to the cops to—.”

There was a quick, sudden movement in his peripheries, and Dean automatically sprang into action. It wasn’t until his gun was in his hand did he realize he’d dropped his coffee, but that was small potatoes compared to the fact that Dead Girl was sitting up on the table.

Perfectly still.

Upright.

Her eyes were still closed, but her jaw had gone slack, hanging open to show the dark inside of her mouth.

But she didn’t move again, and she didn’t look like she was about to. Dean lowered his gun and fell back against the doors of the morgue drawers. He pressed his hand to his face, attempting to calm his suddenly hammering heart. “What the _fuck_?”

He dropped his hand in time to see Cas slipping his angel blade back into his trench coat. “I think it’s just muscle atrophy.”

“It’s _what_?”

Cas walked over to Dead Girl, and Dean felt his pulse jump with worry that she might spring into life and make a move on Cas if he got too close. He held his breath, but nothing happened when Cas settled right next to her.

“A mortician once told me that a body can move after death. It’s, uh, residual electrical signals the brain sends into the muscles. It caused all kinds of odd occurrences.” He canted his head to the side a little, watching the girl like he expected her to move again. She didn’t. 

“You talk to many morticians?” Dean asked skeptically, and tentatively walked forward. He kept one hand on his gun, the rest of him tensed and ready if anything happened. 

“I saw a cadaver’s hand twitch,” he explained. “It was on a hunt.”

“A hunt?” 

“With Jack.” 

Right. Cas had taken Jack on a few hunts so the kid could get his sea legs without his powers. That was before everything went to shit. “Oh.” Dean ignored the pang in his chest. 

“But I’m not certain how long it’s supposed to last after death,” Cas considered. “She’s been dead for days.” 

Dean shrugged. This was all news to him. He’d been around a lot of dead bodies, but he couldn’t remember seeing any of them move, must less sit up. “Should we lay her back down or is she gonna . . .?” He really didn’t want to wait to see if the body would crumple back downwards on its own—or worse, lay down like a normal person would. And he really didn’t want to be in the same room as a corpse that was sitting on the table like she was still living.

“We could try?” Cas guessed.

Dean licked his lips thoughtfully, and then made up his mind. He put his gun away and tentatively placed his hand on Dead Girl’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch or wake up or try to bite him, so he strengthened his grip. He looked at her face, eyes drawn to her gaping mouth and stretched out jaw. It made his skin crawl. 

“C’mon,” he said to Cas, who put his hand on her other shoulder. They worked on bringing her back down, which was a little tough since the body was still so stiff. Dean had to place his other hand on her leg to keep them from rising up as they laid the torso back down. He thought, if he went to fast, they could snap her in two like uncooked pasta. 

Once she was laid down again, Dean took a step back, half expecting her to snap back up into sitting position. She remained still. He’d already tested her, so she wasn’t possessed, and there was no chance of her accidentally still being alive because all her innards were labeled and put into containers. Still, it was better safe than sorry. He reached over and opened up her eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

They were a pale blue, the pupils kind of cloudy. They were dull and dehydrated, and a thick red-brown stripe had formed horizontally in the whites of her eyes. They looked like a few other dead body eyes he’d seen over the years, but he waved his hand in front of them, testing for a response. Nothing.

“What are you doing?” Cas asked.

Dean put his arm back down, suddenly feeling a little silly. “Just checking.” But the girl was pretty dead. If that hadn’t been abundantly clear by now. 

He looked back over at the morgue drawers, were his paper cup of coffee was overturned on the floor, a pool of dark brown spreading out on the tiles. “I’m gonna go find something to clean that up,” he said.

Leaving Cas in the examination room, he went back into the hall and opened door after door in hopes of finding some kind of kitchen or supply room. There were a couple offices, some more exam rooms, a records room, one room just filled with gurneys, which made him shudder. Finally, he found a small lounge that must have served as some kind of break room. There was a cheap square table with faux wood chairs in the center of the room, and a dusty looking cloth sofa pressed against the wall. The small kitchenette had a fridge, some cabinets, and a microwave and coffee maker on the linoleum countertop. There was a roll of paper towels next to the sink. 

Not bothering to turn on the light even though nighttime had fallen fully outside the window, Dean went to the coffee maker first, and filled up the pot with some water to make a brew. Cas didn’t exactly get physically tired, which was a fact that had made Dean’s mind run away with him on more than one occasion, and he rarely drank coffee, but Dean figured he’d bring him a cup just in case. 

As the machine worked, Dean raided the cabinets for some mugs. There were paper plates and plastic utensils in one, some cleaning supplies in another. He also found an assortment of half-burned birthday cake candles, which was a little weird because celebrating a birthday while a bunch of dead people were in the next room seemed a little morbid. But whatever floats your boat.

When he found some mugs, he brought them back over to the pot and waited as the coffee dripped. He was starting to get a little hungry, too, even though he’d nuked a burrito at a gas station on the way over to the morgue. He wondered if there was anything in the fridge he could steal, but decided he desperately needed caffeine before he had enough energy to rummage through someone’s leftovers. 

He drummed his fingertips on the counter, wishing he could whip out his phone and play around on the internet in the meantime, but there was no service and Forrester hadn’t given them the wifi password. She probably didn’t think they’d be there that long; which was fair, because Dean hadn’t thought that, either.

He thought about Dead Girl, and wondered if this really was some run of the mill homicide instead of anything monster related. Even if it were, he kind of wanted to get to the bottom of it, anyway. There was just something off about the whole thing, and it’d drive him nuts if he didn’t find out what it was. 

The more he thought of it, the more it raised goose bumps on his skin. His heart rate quickened a little, breath going shallow. He couldn’t explain it, but his instincts were telling him he was in danger. It started to feel a little cold in the lounge, but not in the sudden-drop-of-temperature, vengeful-spirit-on-the-loose kind of way. It was internal, and it felt like someone was dragging something cold slowly down the back of his neck. He stiffened, fingers twitching towards his gun. 

But that was stupid. There was nothing around. It was just him and Cas and a few dead bodies. Nothing to worry about. He was just psyching himself out because this case was so weird. 

He kept telling himself that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. He shook his head, swallowing audibly. He realized his hand was gripping the edge of the sink so tight his knuckles were going white, and there was a headache blooming in his temples. He dug the heel of his palm into his eye, trying to stifle it.

This was stupid. He was an adult.

He let his hand fall away and blinked rapidly to correct his vision. Maybe that was why he didn’t immediately register the mass of white, darkened by the shadows, in the corner of his eye. But then he did, and he could have sworn someone was standing in the corner of the room. He swallowed, pressure rushing frigid in his ears. Quickly, he whipped around towards the corner, ready for anything. 

Except maybe the lab coat hanging by a hook. 

He exhaled heavily. He was such a dumbass. 

On the other side of the room, the door creaked open, and Dean’s nerves were just about shot by that point. He jumped, looking over in time to see the door fall closed again with a heavy thud. 

The coffee made a hissing noise as the last of it seeped out into the pot, and Dean almost ripped out his gun and shot the machine. But luckily he still had some of his wits left about him. 

He shook his head, forcing calm. “Come on, Dean,” he scolded himself. He felt like a damn amateur. He hadn’t gotten this freaked out since he was ten, maybe even eight. And why? Because some corpse had a muscle spasm and sat bolt upright? Because a draft opened a door? 

Because he’d watched dozens of zombies spring out of their graves, nearly got torn to shreds from the spirits of hell? Because who the hell knows what Chuck let loose on the world, and every damn step they took could be their last?

Dean gripped the edge of the counter, trying to get a hold of himself. He closed his eyes tight, and all he saw were empty eye sockets and a pair of wings burned into the earth.

Why the hell hadn’t Dean just pulled the trigger? Maybe then the world wouldn’t be ending—for real this time. He’d be dead, but so what? Jack would be dead, too, and that’s what had stopped him. Because he’d second-guessed himself. And he’d been second-guessing himself again and again, about everything, ever since.

He couldn’t even trust his own instincts in telling the difference between a fucking lab coat and a ghost, because he didn’t even know if his instincts were his own.

Of all the times to lose it, right? 

He shook himself out, and forced it down. He poured two mugs of the coffee and walked back to the exam room a little quicker than was probably necessary, because it felt like something was licking at his heels. Through the window in the door, the room looked empty at first, the mummified bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Fox pushed back into the wall, and Dead Girl still flat on the table. 

Dean toed one door open and went inside, looking around before finally finding Cas as Forrester’s desk. He was leafing through her report, neck bent over it and elbow on the desk, propped up to cradle his temple. It was moments like these when Dean forgot he wasn’t human, that there was a hurricane of light and sound contained by a thin barrier of skin and bone, that Cas had been around since the creation of the universe—because there he was, sitting in some random coroner’s office in Bumblefuck, USA reading a medical report as his shoulders sagged with what could be exhaustion and every line on his face was soft and unguarded. 

One corner of Dean’s mouth quirked in a quick smile before he could stop himself. He walked over, holding up one mug. “Coffee?”

“No. Thank you,” Cas said without glancing up. Dean sat the mug in front of him on the desk anyway, just in case he changed his mind, and sat down on one of the metal chairs across from them.

“I thought you were going to clean up the spill,” Cas said then, and Dean realized he’d forgotten all about the spilled coffee. That was the whole reason he’d gone into the kitchen in the first place. Man, he was getting old . . .

“Right,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the coffee on the tiles. 

“In any case, you may be right,” Cas said, changing the topic. He let out a heavy breath and let the file folder fall closed. “I can’t see anything that points to this as being ‘our kind of thing.’” He used those stupid exaggerated air quotes, and Dean had to hide his smirk behind the rim of his mug.

“It’s probably just a waste of time,” Dean agreed. He tested out a small sip, making sure the drink wasn’t too hot, before taking another one. It tasted like motor oil, but it would get the job done. 

“Unless Sam’s found anything telling us otherwise, but your instincts on these things are better than mine.”

Dean wasn’t so sure of that right now, even though it was probably technically true. Cas didn’t have a billion years of evolution under his belt telling him to be afraid of the dark, or when to fight and when to run. Still, Dean couldn’t find it in himself to agree. “Yeah, maybe,” he mumbled into his coffee. 

Cas was quiet for a second, but Dean could feel his eyes on him—questioning, squinted with a lined brow. He could practically set his watch by how many seconds it took before Cas finally said, “Dean. Are you alright?” 

Dean wanted to laugh. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say nothing was how it was supposed to be, and he didn’t know what was up or down anymore. He just rubbed at his eyes instead, and said, “I dunno. I think it’s just the weather making me tired.”

Cas leaned into the desk a little, setting his arms on top of it and folding his hands together. “Well, I don’t think there’s much more we can do here. We could return to the motel?” He lifted his shoulders a little, and Dean was tempted to take him up on that. He even started wondering if the motel TV had any movies they could rent.

But, “Nah. I think we can do more here. We should check under every stone, right? Just to be sure?”

Cas regarded him for a long while, like he knew there was something Dean wasn’t saying. He worked his jaw from side to side a little in thought, and there was _definitely_ something he wasn’t saying. 

“It’d just be nice,” Dean went on off his silence. “To have a win, you know?” He thought that could be this case; but, the way things were going, that didn’t look like it was going to happen.

Cas’ eyes dropped downward. “Yeah.” He paused, and opened his mouth to say something else—but then there was a sound from behind Dean. It made both of them jump up from their seats, adrenaline fresh in Dean’s blood. Dead Girl was giving off a long, drawn out sound that was somewhere between a hiss and a scream. 

Her mouth was still open, and she was completely still, her throat not conforming to release the sound. It didn’t last for very long, and it was probably just the body letting out air. Dean had seen that before—bodies making sighing and breathing and even gasping noises as the gases escaped. 

“I think she’s been out of the cooler for too long,” Cas said, and that was probably a reasonable explanation, but fuck. Dean sagged as the adrenaline melted away, leaving him more exhausted than before. He sat back down and rubbed at both eyes with his fingers, and realized his headache was getting worse. “Sonofabitch . . .”

Cas put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean very nearly jumped again. Knowing he must have frightened him, Cas quickly retracted his hand, confusion washing over his face.

“Dean, you need to rest,” Cas said, walking around the desk slowly as if he were going to do something about it. 

Dean shook his head. “No, I’m, uh—We just need to figure this out.” Even as he said it, his last words were swallowed up by a wide yawn. Cas tilted his head to the side and shot his eyebrows up, like Dean had just proven his point. 

“Just a few minutes,” he offered. He walked in front of Dean and held his palm up. Dean stared at him for a couple of long seconds, deciding whether or not to take it. He told himself that he should still be pissed off, but that was getting harder to do.

Folding, he slapped his hand into Cas’ and let himself be hauled up. Five minutes couldn’t hurt. 

They went to the lounge, and Dean immediately dropped down on the fraying sofa along the wall. It was kind of nasty, and he didn’t want to put his head down on the arm cushion, so he placed his hand under his cheek as a barrier and rested on that instead. 

Cas had gone over to the coffee machine and started making another pot. He filled up the canter in the sink and poured the water into the machine, then scooped out a few spoonfuls of grinded up beans in. Dean watched him mill about, eyes drooping lazily. 

While the coffee was brewing, Cas turned around to look back at him, and his expression softened into something close to amusement. “Here,” he said, lifting himself up from his lean against the counter and walking across the room to the couch. He shed his trench coat as he moved, and balled it up before offering it to Dean as a pillow.

Dean didn’t want to take it at first, but it was probably better than his arm, so he grumbled a thanks and bunched it up under him. He didn’t think he’d actually fall asleep, though. There was too much work to do, and they had to get back to it. He just wanted to rest his eyes for a second. 

But that didn’t really go to plan. 

As he drifted off, he heard the coffee in the machine gurgling. He heard the scrape of a chair against the tiles as Cas pulled it out from the table to sit. He heard the heat kick on in the vent. He heard Cas breathing.

His body was heavy around him, muscles paralyzed and mind fuzzy as it rested on the knife’s edge between sleep and wakefulness.

He dreamed of hollowed eyes. He dreamed of a body in the woods, flecks of dirt and grass tangling in curly blonde hair. He dreamed of flames and funeral pyre. He dreamed of a gun in his hand, and innocent eyes staring at him with forgiveness and understanding down the barrel of the weapon. 

He dreamed of shuffling. The sounds of running footsteps. Doors creaking open on their hinges. 

“Dean, wake up,” Cas was saying. There was a pressure on Dean’s chest, holding him down. He thrashed against it, trying to break free. “Dean!”

Dean ripped his eyes open, and Cas came into focus. His eyes were big and full of concern, and Dean realized he was gasping for breath. His throat felt dry. His lungs burned.

He’d been dreaming. 

He skewed his eyes shut, pressing them tight, and then opening them again in attempt to catch his bearings.

Cas always looked so funny without his trench coat on. Like he was naked, even though he was still in a suit. It was a strange thought, but it chased away the images from Dean’s nightmare away until he couldn’t grasp them anymore. 

The next thing he realized was the emptiness in his stomach, telling him to eat. And he was thirsty. He smacked his lips, trying to get rid of the dry feeling on his tongue.

He sat up with a heavy breath, and Cas slowly settled down on the cushion next to him. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. He wasn’t really sure why he said what he said next. Maybe because his nightmare was still fresh. Maybe because he was still so damn tired. Maybe because he felt like his bones were about to jump out of his skin at every second in this place.

“I feel like ‘m losing my damn mind.”

Cas didn’t say anything, but Dean could feel him watching him—listening, waiting. Like always.

“I just,” Dean said, letting his arms fall but not correcting his posture. He shook his head into the shadows of the middle distance. I can’t stop thinkin’ about him.”

Cas inhaled a sharp breath, and Dean saw him nod once in his peripheries. “Yeah, I can’t either.”

At least they had that in common. But it wasn’t enough. Dean needed Cas to understand. He needed them to be back on the same page. Because the whole fucking world was on the brink, and he just needed Cas on his side, just as much as he needed Sam. Maybe, in some ways, differently than he needed Sam.

“Cas, you know it wasn’t him, right? At the end.”

Cas was already shaking his head, jaw jutting out in an angry pout, halfway through Dean’s words. “You don’t believe that.”

Dean didn’t want to hear it. Because he had to believe it. Because it was true. “Like hell,” he said, hoping that if he said it enough times with enough determination, the roiling in his gut might stop. That he might stop seeing Jack’s big, trusting eyes staring at him on the other end of the gun.

“Then why didn’t you shoot?” Cas challenged, tone sharp and short, and he turned to fix his glare on Dean. Dean held it for a good few seconds, but he couldn’t come up with an excuse. Cas dropped his shoulders, voice still a little pissed but softer now as he said, “Because it _was_ him, Dean. And because you love him. And I love him, and Sam . . . Mary loved him.”

Dean felt his throat close up at the mention of Mary’s name. He knew Cas was right. He knew it. It was one of the reasons why he’d dropped the gun in the first place. His mom would have wanted Jack to live, for them to fix this. “Yeah, and now they’re both dead. And look at where that got us.” 

Cas nodded again. “Yeah.”

It felt hopeless, all of a sudden, as the shadows around pressed in and the wind and rain tapped against the creaking glass windows. “We can’t win this one, can we?”

Cas shuffled a little. He folded his hands between his knees. Dean knew he really didn’t have much hope, either. None of them did. They were just going through the motions, fighting, getting angry—because the alternative was rolling over and dying. “We’ve beaten the odds before,” Cas said wearisomely. 

Yeah, they had, but not these odds. Rule one of gambling: the house always wins. God was the house if there ever was one.

Dean scoffed out a laugh, because dying wasn’t even his biggest concern. He’d been ready to die in some big battle or small monster hunt his whole life. It was the stuff that came before—or the stuff that didn’t come—that worried him. 

“What’s so funny?” Cas asked, confused and pissy and looking like Dean was insane.

“It’s the fucking end of days, and you know what the damndest thing is?” Dean answered, looking back over at him. “You and me ain’t even talking to each other.” 

Cas seemed a little uncomfortable, and he had every right to be, because Dean felt awkward just saying it. But someone had to.

“Okay, you talk first,” Cas told him, and that was just so typical.

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Dean asked, frustrated again. Cas didn’t answer, he just stared back until Dean decided it wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t about to argue about the way they argued. It was better to move on. He sighed through his nose, and said, “Look, you’ve said it yourself. Before . . . You know, everything. Things were good. I mean, we had the kid. We had Mom. We had each other, and Sam. Things were . . ." 

He couldn’t find another word. 

“Good, yeah,” Cas supplied.

“Exactly,” Dean agreed. “Hell, they were probably the best they’d ever been. Michael and Lucifer were dead, the world wasn’t ending, none of us had our head on the chopping block because of some stupid deal.”

Cas looked down at his hands thoughtfully, probably reminiscing about the good old days. Dean wondered if thinking about it made him ache as much as it did Dean. 

He paused, running his tongue over his lips as he considered stopping there. But, while they were being honest: “I was starting to think . . . maybe . . .” His courage ran out there, and he wondered if there was a way to swallow the words back up.

But apparently Cas understood. He said, “Maybe it was time. For you and me.” 

Dean couldn’t look at him, could see the way his eyes were glistening in the darkness, couldn’t listen to the raw emotion deepening his voice. He nodded. “Somethin’ like that.”

Dean had started to believe there never would be a good time for them. There was always something—some catastrophe that took precedence. Some threat knocking down their door. There was never time, and half of him didn’t want there to be. Because there was no retirement plan for this job. One of them would end up dying bloody—for good—sooner or later, and the last time Cas had died, it had just about killed Dean, too. And he didn’t know if he could do that, to put himself out there knowing there’d be pain later. 

And the other part of him just wanted to go for it—because, yeah, they were going to die bloody sooner or later. And maybe this is the only time they were ever going to have. Maybe not taking that risk, wondering, letting it slip by, was worse. Even if it ended badly. Even if it ended in tragedy. Maybe the ending wasn’t the part that mattered. 

Cas sucked in his lips and bit down on them, nodding a little more quickly now like he was trying to stave off some emotion. “That would have made me very happy, Dean,” he said softly, but he sounded so damn sad about it, and it made Dean have to blink away the pressure welling in his eyes. 

He didn’t want to hear the way Cas’ voice hitched around the words. It caused a fissure to open up in his heart. 

“Hey, come here,” he whispered, and he didn’t even know if Cas would play along, but it was worth the risk. He scooted in closer to him and put his hand on Cas’ jaw, turning his head. Cas let himself be guided easily, right towards Dean’s lips. 

It felt so good to kiss him again. It’d been a long time—longer than a year. They hadn’t kissed since before Dean said yes to Michael. Right before he said, yes, actually. And Dean didn’t know why they didn’t do it when he got back. Maybe it was _because_ of Michael. Because Dean felt dirty and violated, like his body wasn’t all his anymore. He didn’t want Cas to have any part of that. And Cas was just so damn patient and understanding, even though there hadn’t even been a conversation. 

And then all the shit that went down with Jack, and now Chuck. Before Dean even knew it, a whole year went by without him kissing Cas.

Dean hadn’t thought he would have been able to do it again. Because he didn’t even know if how they felt about each other was real or if it was just part of the plot. He wanted to think that what he felt for Cas was despite Chuck’s story, but how could he? Cas rebelled. Cas fell. Because that’s the way it was supposed to be.

And Dean didn’t think it would be so easy to forget that and just kiss him again. But it kind of was.

Dean had missed it. 

He nipped at Cas’ bottom lip, and Cas must have stolen some sips of coffee after all, because he tasted like it. Leaving one hand on Cas’ jaw, rubbing gently up and down to feel Cas’ stubble tickle his palm, Dean brought his other hand up to wrap around Cas’ tie. He pulled him in a little closer, and Cas gave a low growling sound as he licked along the seam of Dean’s lips. Dean parted his mouth, letting their tongues roll and lap together slowly. He felt Cas set a hand on his thigh, and the other wrapped around the back of his neck to hold him in place—like Dean was going anywhere. 

There was nowhere to go, anyway. No one to interrupt them.

That was how they came together—alone, with no one else around, in the quiet and the dark, like it was a secret. 

Because it was. Even parts of it were a secret to themselves, and there were certain truths that Dean didn’t acknowledge. The first was the fact that he loved Cas. He loved him like the tides love the moon. Powerfully, like nothing else could move him. Indispensably, as if his whole world might just fall apart without it. Distantly, because no matter how far he reached, he could never really touch him.

The second was the fact that Cas loved him back, as a moth might love a flame. All Dean ever did was burn off his wings, and still Cas flew right towards him time and time again.

And Dean thought maybe it was real, after all.

Vaguely, Dean realized the rain had started pounding against the roof again, but he was more focused on the low noises being pulled out of Cas' throat. 

He shifted on the sofa, turning his body more into Cas so he could slowly pull him down on top of him as he laid back. He was a little too tired to do anything more than make out, but that was okay. He wanted them to settle in, so he could feel Cas' weight over him, feel the slow drag of his body. 

They didn't sleep together too often. The last time had been when Cas came back from the Empty. And there'd be the first time, in Idaho when Cas was human. There had been a few instances between the two, most notably that night of rough sex thanks to the Mark of Cain. That was probably the only good thing that came out of the Mark. But they usually weren't together unless times were really tough.

And, when it was over, they had an unspoken understanding not to talk about it. To go on like nothing happened—because the timing wasn't right, or the world was ending, or whatever other excuses they could think of that were starting to feel weaker and weaker as the years progressed.

There was a foreign, static current humming under Dean's skin, like he'd just touched one of those oversize plasma orbs at a science museum. It made his skin prickle and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but it was comfortable, welcomed, unlike the burning zap whenever Cas healed him. It only happened when Cas was happy. Dean put his hands in Cas' hair and deepened the kiss until the sensation built from a slight tickle to something overpowering.

Cas turned his face away abruptly then, and Dean let out a grumpy sound of protest as air forced its way back into his lungs. He could hear Cas panting, too, as he said, "What is that?"

Dean blinked up at him in the darkness, not understanding until his mind caught up to him and he realized the sound of the rain had gotten louder. "It's just the rain," he said, not really knowing why it mattered. They hadn't made out in a year, and that's what Cas was distracted by? Seriously? Dean mouthed at his jaw, feeling the burn of his stubble against his lips, to regain his attention.

"That's not the rain."

Dean ignored him and just carried on.

"Dean! _Dean_—listen."

Dean groaned and dropped his head back against Cas' coat still bunched on the couch. He pursed his lips in annoyance, but decided to humor Cas. But then, as he listened a little closer, he noticed the rhythm was wrong. It sounded distant and muffled, but still thundering. It almost sounded like someone was running, but it was coming from everywhere at once.

And then it got louder suddenly, the slapping sound narrowing down to the hallway just on the other side of the wall. It faded back into the distance almost as soon as it came. Someone was definitely running—fast—but Dean couldn't tell which direction they'd run in. 

"What the hell?" he whispered, heart jumping up into his throat. He lifted himself up by his elbows, and Cas pushed himself off of him until he was sitting back on his ankles. He was staring at the wall like he could see through it.

"Is there anyone else in the building?" Cas eyes, even though it sounded like he already knew the answer. No one was there. It was just them. Even if there was another person around, no human could run that quickly.

Dean listened harder, trying to pinpoint where the footsteps were coming from now, but he couldn't. The echo was coming from everywhere.

A sick feeling twisted his stomach as he thought of Dead Girl, and the way she'd just shot up into a sitting position out of nowhere. And, yeah, zombies weren't the slowpokes they were depicted as in the movies, but they weren't that fast, either. They were normal. 

"That coroner you were talking about before didn't say anything about dead bodies getting up and running around, did he?" he tried to joke, but it fell flat judging by the way Cas' eyes flickered to him with exasperation. 

The sound got closer again, blowing past the lounge, and then settled back into the distance. Both of them sprung up from the couch, and Dean swayed a little with a bout of vertigo. He clutched his head, blinking rapidly until the room stopped spinning and the nausea settled. It only last about a second, and he figured he must have stood up too quickly after napping. 

If Cas noticed, he didn't say anything, and went for his trench coat to fish out his angel blade. Dean got out his gun, which could be useless depending on what the hell they were up against. He clicked off the safety, anyway.

Wordlessly, they paced towards the door, and Cas opened it just wide enough to peer outside. Dean watched his head turn from one side to the other. He said, "It's clear," and leaned back to open the door further.

They stepped out into the hall, both of them quiet as to not alert whoever was running around. Dean took one hand off his gun and signaled for Cas to go left down the hall. Cas nodded, and then he was off. Dean went right.

He moved slowly, treading one foot in front of the other as quietly as he could, gun held at the ready and eyes peeled. Every time he turned a corner, he sped up, gun first, in case the creature—or whatever it was—was on the other side. He was only ever met by vacant long stretches of hallway. The running sounds had stopped, and it was only then that he realized how much of the cacophony was the sound of his heart slamming against his ribs.

He forced himself to control his breathing, because there was no reason for him to react this way. He was usually on edge during hunts, but only as to not get himself killed. But this felt different. This felt like fear, but not the rational kind he could explain away. It was the same deep-seated, instinctual fear that once drove the cavemen to discover fire. He couldn't shake it, and it made him feel cold down to his core. 

Eventually, he found himself back at the exam room, and he almost called out for Cas when he glanced in the window and saw Dead Girl was sitting up again—eyes and mouth still open. He half expected her to turn her head towards him. But, honestly, he wouldn't be surprised at that point.

Whatever that thing was, he was sure it wasn't just a body.

He pressed open one of the doors, and instantly heard a quiet wheezing sound. At first, he thought it was a rusty a pipe in the walls or something, but when he narrowed in on the noise, it was coming from Dead Girl. He immediately pointed his gun at her, eyes unblinking and hard as he stood ready to shoot. She didn’t move. Her chest wasn’t rising and falling with breath, but that horrible, broken sound was still emitting from her pale lips, mouth parted in a silent scream. 

“What are you?” he demanded.

There was no change.

And then, all at once, a ringing started in his ears. His vision swam and head reeled with dizziness. He felt like he was in one of those spin-chamber rides at a carnival. He doubled over, and all he wanted to do was lay down, catch his breath, maybe fall asleep again. Maybe that would make the vertigo stop. Maybe it would help take his mind off his parched throat and the gnawing hunger in his gut. That was a trick he learned as a kid. Injured? Sleep it off. Hungry? Sleep. Cold? Curl up and pass out.

But he couldn’t do that right now because some psycho Dead Girl was doing something to him. 

He gritted his teeth and tried to swallow down the feeling. He looked up at the body. It was moving—but not in the way a normal person would. It looked like involuntary muscle spasms, like when you’re on the cusp of sleep, heart rate slowing, and your leg kicks out thanks to some brain synapse thinking you’re dying.

Her arms jerked out, fingers twitching against the metal table. Her legs skittered and slid and her toes curled. Her expression remained completely neutral.

Dean did the only thing he could. He leveled his gun and fired off a few rounds directly into her chest. The body was forced back, and toppled over the table to land with a thud in a heap on the floor. It went completely still. 

Dean breathed out heavily, trying to regain control of himself. Nausea still sat as heavy as a rock in his lower gut, but the dizziness had passed, at least. He brought his gun back up at the ready and paced warily towards the body. She was just a mess of pale limbs face down on the floor. Her long dark hair was fanned out against the white tiles. 

Someone was running down the hallway, and the next thing Dean heard were the doors to the room slamming open. He spun his gun around towards them, and almost squeezed the trigger about a half a second before processing that it was Cas.

Cas looked unfazed by the gun, and instead glanced frantically around the room. His eyes went wide as they landed on Dead Girl. “What happened?”

“That thing’s alive!” Dean shouted, pointing towards her with the barrel of his gun. “It was moving, Cas! It was fucking _breathing_!” 

Cas’ eyes flickered between Dean and Dead Girl. Then, carefully, he walked closer to the body until he was standing right over it. His blade was gripped tightly in his fist, and Dean cocked his gun again just in case she tried anything. Quickly, Cas swept down and grabbed the girl’s shoulder, and flipped her over. Dean held his breath.

And nothing happened. 

She landed on her back with a squelching sound, and there were three dark bullet holes in her chest and stomach. Dean wondered if he’d killed her for real this time.

“There’s no more rigor mortis,” Cas said. He straightened out, still looking down at the Jane Doe. “She feels . . . warmer.” 

Dean balked. “_Warmer_?” 

“Room temperature,” Cas corrected. “She’s been out in the open for hours. It could just be—.” 

“She was moving,” Dean maintained. 

“You’re sure?” 

Dean let out a frustrated sound. He was so not in the mood for this. “Pretty fuckin’ sure, Cas!”

Cas huffed out a breath, but didn’t argue. He looked skeptically back down at the body. “Do you—do you think she was the one running around?”

Dean shrugged, at a loss. And then he remembered the desktop behind the desk in the reception area. He bet it was connected to the security cameras in the building. Maybe they could catch a peek at whoever was running around. “Let’s find out,” he said, but then hesitated. 

If Dead Girl really was alive, he didn’t want her getting away. He forced himself to walk over, and said, “Help me get her back on ice. She can stay locked in there ‘til we get back.” 

He can Cas worked on picking the body up and bringing it over the morgue drawers. It was a little harder than it should have been. The girl couldn’t have been more than a hundred pounds, and it was all dead weight at this point, but even so, it was hard. Dean’s limbs felt weak with fatigue, and he was breathing heavily by the time they got her into the drawer. 

“Are you feeling alright?” Cas asked as Dean locked the drawer up tight.

“I’m fine.”

“Dean.” Cas brought his hand up to Dean’s forehead, no matter how much Dean tried to dodge it. The touch only lasted about a second, but Cas’ brows were knitting together. “You feel cold.” 

“Yeah, I’m standing next to a fridge,” Dean barked. “It’s cold in here.” 

Cas shook his head, looking at Dean like he could see right through him. His hair was still a little messy from Dean’s fingers, and his tie hung even looser than usual from Dean tugging at it. Dean pulled at his own tie, wishing he could change into his street clothes. This fed get-up was starting to constrict his airways. 

“You look pale, too, Dean, and there are shadows under your eyes,” Cas told him matter-of-factly. 

Dean grumbled. “Way to make a guy feel special.” He shouldered past Cas towards the doors. “You comin’ or what?”

They took the hallways slowly, keeping their eyes peeled and their weapons ready as they listened out for those running footsteps. Cas was pressed in close to Dean's back at they walked, their bodies occasionally brushing together as they moved. It made Dean feel a little steadier, especially since his breath was trapped deep within his lungs and a sick sense of dread was stealing over him more and more with every step. 

When they got to the reception area, they went towards the main desk and Dean leaned over the keyboard. He moved the mouse, making the computer screen flicker out of sleep mode and reveal the desktop. He searched around for the security footage while Cas stood over his shoulder, turning his head this way and that as he listened out for any noises.

When he found the archive files, he clicked on the most recent video, its timestamp from about a half hour ago. A screen with four camera feeds popped up, showing two views of the hallways, one of the lounge, and one from the reception area. Dean scrubbed through, watching for anything strange. About ten minutes into the video file, he saw a flash rush past one of the hallway cameras. 

"You see that?" he asked, capturing Cas' attention.

"What?"

Dean rewound a few seconds and let it play normally. The blur of motion, vaguely human shaped, shot past again. He looked over his shoulder at Cas' furrowed brows in the blue light of the screen.

"Whatever that thing is, it can move," Dean said. He turned back at the screen, wondering if there was a way he could slow the footage down so they could get a better look at the thing. But maybe he didn't need to. He thought back to earlier, when he was in the lounge and the door opened and closed by itself. He thought it had just been the draft, but maybe he'd been wrong.

"Hang on, lemme see something," he muttered as he clicked out of the video window and scrolled through the files. He clicked on the timestamp from around the time he thought he was in the lounge, already grinding his teeth to prepare himself for the worst.

He really hoped he wasn't right about this. He really hoped he was just being paranoid.

He scrubbed through the footage until he saw himself walk into the lounge and head for the coffee maker. He saw himself rummage through the cabinets and grip at the side of the counter in a bout of anxiety and exhaustion. And he could just feel Cas' questioning eyes flicker towards him in that moment, but he pretended not to. 

And then he didn't have to pretend anything at all, because something was standing in the corner of the room on screen. It had just bled out of the shadows, pale limbs and a long white dress. Her dark hair fell down over her face, but Dean could still make out some of the features. It was Dead Girl.

But the body had been in the exam room at that point. Or, at least, Dean thought she had been. He hit the pause button and looked back at Cas quickly, trying to control his panic.

As if Cas knew what he was about to accuse him of, he said, "She was on the table the entire time you were gone." 

Dean blinked, wondering whether or not to believe him. Cas wouldn't lie about something like that. Cas wouldn't just forget to mention that.

"You're sure?"

Cas gave him a tense look. "Yes."

Dean believed him. He turned back to the screen, getting a good look at the girl. "So, it's a ghost," he said, but he wasn't so sure. She wasn't acting like ghosts usually did, not to mention everything that happened with the body.

"Dean, look at her feet," Cas said, and Dean's gaze flickered down to look at them. The image was a little dark, and at first it looked like her legs ended at the ankles, but then he got a better look. It was like her feet were on backwards. They weren't twisted or turned around. They were just . . . facing in the opposite way from the rest of her body. 

"What the fuck?" he breathed out. He unpaused the video, and waited until he saw himself go still. The Dean on the video whipped around to look at the corner, and at the same moment, Dead Girl moved. She was too quick to track fully, but the door to the room opened and closed.

Dean tried to swallow, but something was blocking his throat. His palm was starting to feel a little clammy over the computer mouse.

He straightened out suddenly, nearly knocking back against Cas in the process. They needed rock salt—a lot of it. "We need to call Sam," he said, "see if he's figured anything out."

The rain was a steady drizzle when they got outside, but it was frigid, and Dean's fingers instantly numbed in the damp chill being kicked around by the wind. He wished they could stay under the shelter of the doorway's overhang, but his phone didn't pick up a signal there. He held it up, the white light of the screen making him wince at first as he walked around the parking lot looking for bars. It was the first chance he had to look at the time, and it was a little after 11 PM. Cas must have let him sleep for longer than Dean had thought. 

When the one measly little bar of service popped up, Dean felt like he was racing the clock, as though the phone might change its mind and lose coverage if he didn't act fast. He went into his recent calls and rang up Sam, who picked up almost immediately. 

"Dean? Where the hell are you guys? It doesn't take that long to check out a body," Sam said. In the background, Dean heard the low murmur of a news broadcaster on a television, so Sam must have ditched the library and headed back to the motel.

Dean glanced at Cas in the dreary light provided by the building's motion sensor. His hair was starting to stick to his forehead, and the shoulders of his coat were dotting with raindrops. His lips were still a little swollen from making out, and Dean tried not to focus on that. 

Dean felt the misty rain across his cheeks. The cold was starting to seep into his boots, making his toes curl up. "Yeah, change of plans," he said. "The morgue—it's haunted. Or something. We're not really sure. Either that, or the body's possessed."

"What?" Sam asked, a little dumbfounded. "Dean—What the hell happened?"

Dean told him what the hell happened. The body sitting up, making sounds, breathing. Dead Girl showing up on camera. The running footsteps. 

He started bouncing a little to stave off the cold, his free hand balled into a fist, and his muscles started to feel tight. He could hear his voice wavering a little as he tried not to shiver. Cas was completely unaffected by the temperature, no matter how much the wind was making the tails of his coat billow out. 

"Dean, her feet," Cas reminded him, and Dean nodded.

"Right, right. Her feet. They looked like they were turned around," Dean relayed.

There was a pause over the line, and Dean was sure Sam was stumped. But then Sam said, "Her feet? Hang on. That sounds familiar."

There was a rustling sound, and then the clacking of a keyboard.

A shiver wracked Dean's spine, and Cas reached out to take his free hand. He uncurled it and started to warm it between his palms. Dean looked at him, his lips parting gently as a kind of warmth spread through him like slow moving tendrils. He wasn't really sure if it was Cas' grace heating him up or if that was just the way he was reacting to Cas touching him. 

Sam let out a little huff, like he did when he had a eureka moment. "I think I know what we're up against," he said. Dean forced himself to pay attention. He lifted the phone from his ear and put it on speaker so Cas could listen, too.

"It's called a Kichkandi," Sam explained. "It's a creature from Nepalese lore. Apparently, it's a type of spirit that attaches itself to the remains of a corpse that hasn't full been cremated." His voice had taken on a certain litany that suggested he was reciting that last part, like he was reading it off. "Usually a bone fragment that didn't burn up."

Dean thought back, remembering, "Didn't the victim's daughter say they recently had another death in the family?"

"Yeah, her cousin," Sam said. "Her ashes were on the mantel."

"So, small piece of her stays in tact, this ghost hitches a ride," Dean figured.

"Right, but that's not all. The spirit uses the remains to build up a body for itself, but that's just a jumping off point. It sucks the life force from the people around it in order to animate. Their victims appear withered and thin. Huh. Guess that explains our vics." 

Dean could feel Cas' eyes on him, boring in and assessing him. He kept his own gaze fixed on the phone, but he knew what Cas was thinking because he was thinking it, too. His exhaustion, the nausea, the dizziness, the bone-deep weariness and paranoia, even his hunger. It hadn't started until they came up against the body.

"The Kichkandi appear to have white skin, long dark hair, and their feet are backwards so you never know what direction they're moving in," Sam read off. "And it looks like these things can run fast."

Dean nodded, his tongue feeling like sandpaper as it darted out to lick his lips in thought. "Sounds like our Jane Doe." 

Cas shook his head and leaned in close to the phone, like he still didn't understand the concept of a call, and that you didn't have to be right up to the receiver for the person on the other end to hear you. "But, Sam, if it's a spirit, why couldn't I sense any EMF?"

Sam let out an unsure sound. "I dunno. Maybe it's not a typical spirit? It's just energy at first. That must be what you guys heard running around, and what you saw caught on camera. But it's corporeal at the end of the process."

Cas thinned his lips, like the answer didn't satisfy him. But Dean wasn't focusing on that right now. "How do we kill it?"

"Looks like it's the same as any other spirit. Salt and burn the bones," Sam said. "Except, it won't be the original remains the Kichkandi came from. It'll be the body it’s building." 

Dean nodded once. "Got it." 

He went to hang up, but Sam gave a stuttering sound to stop him. "Hang on, Dean. Should I be there to back you guys up?"

No way Dean was waiting for Sam to get all the way out to the morgue. He wanted this done now. Besides, if the Kichkandi was drawing off Dean's life force, they didn't need to add Sam's, too, especially with that bullet wound in Sam’s shoulder already causing problems. Another person to feel off would only make the spirit stronger.

"No. We'll just take the body down to the crematory and burn it," he said. "Should be easy." 

"Okay," Sam said. "Text me when it’s done." 

"Yeah." Dean hung up and shoved his phone back into his pocket. He realized his hand was still in Cas', and he flushed a little before pulling it away. The cold hit him again instantly like a wall. He went to the Impala's trunk and unloaded some rock salt bullets and a rifle just to be safe before heading back inside.

"Dean, wait," Cas said, trailing after him quickly as Dean walked towards the door. "The Kichkandi. It's been affecting you, hasn't it?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean told him, because it didn't. He got to the door, and pulled at it hard. It ripped open more forcefully than Dean thought it would, making him stumble backwards into Cas. He corrected himself quickly and recovered by gesturing down at the door handle as if it had just proved his point. "See? I'm good. Let's just dust this chick."

Cas sighed, but he nodded as he followed Dean inside. "Okay," he said, and Dean was really glad he didn't make it into an argument for once.

Dean let the end of his rifle lead as they walked back through the halls of the morgue. He kept himself tense and alert, blinking more than he probably had to, but it kept his vision from blurring with the need for sleep. Cas' breath was practically on his neck with how close he was huddled to Dean's back as they edged down the corridor.

Everything was quiet, and when they passed the domed security mirror in the hall, Dean glanced up at it half-expecting to see Dead Girl in back of them. They were alone, their images warped by the curve of the mirror.

Dean felt like he could relax just a little when the exam room doors were in sight, but he paused before them anyway, just to peek through the window so he knew what he was walking into. Everything inside was normal—empty, just like they left it. And then his eyes flickered to the morgue drawers, and his stomach dropped when he realized one of them was hanging open. 

"Son of a . . ." he muttered, throat going dry. 

"What is it?" Cas asked.

Dean swallowed hard, his throat clicking. "Look," he whispered, nodding towards the drawer.

Cas leaned in closer to look over his soldier, and Dean felt him go tense against his back. "That's the compartment we put the body in," he whispered.

Dean steeled his jaw and nodded once. "Yeah." And then, just for wishful thinking, "Maybe we didn't close it up all the way?" But he had. He’d made sure.

He glanced at Cas, having to turn his head slightly to see him in the proximity, but not too far because then his nose would brush against Cas' cheek. Cas' eyes had slid to him, glaring at him out of their corners like Dean was being foolish, and Dean had to admit he had a point. Dean pressed his lips together, cheeks dimpling. Cas could have at least humored him. 

Dean brought up the rifle again and pushed through the doors, holding the weapon ready, his eyes scanning every dark corner of the room. The two of them walked towards the open morgue drawer, and despite Dean's roiling gut sending out a distress signal that he'd totally puke if that thing was empty, it was empty.

He and Cas shared a look, neither of them really knowing where to go from there. Dead Girl could be anywhere, but Dean was starting to feel like she was right behind him. The sensation swept over him, and it was like he'd vibrate out of his skin if he didn't get it in check.

This was stupid. It was a ghost. It was just a ghost. A ghost that now had a body and was using Dean to bring it to life in some kind of sick reverse-decaying process. 

The pounding rhythm of footsteps started up again, causing him to jump in surprise. Cas' eyes went wide, too, as they both whipped towards the door. The sound was coming from everywhere—the hall, the ceiling, the corners of the room. Dean didn't know where to point the rifle. 

"We gotta get her downstairs," he said, because that was the only choice they had. If they couldn't carry her down, they'd trap her. 

"How? She has her body now," Cas said, sounding a little stressed. Dean knew the feeling.

Dean bit down on his jaw, thinking. "Me." Cas turned back around quickly to look at him. Before he could comment on how bad of an idea that was, Dean kept talking. "She's using me to get her juices flowing, right? So, she'll come after me to finish the job. I draw her into the basement, you toss her into the oven. Easy."

Cas blanched. "Easy?" he echoed incredulously, popping his brows. "How do you expect me to catch her at her speed?"

Dean scoffed, because he was exhausted and he couldn't think of everything. "I dunno, Cas. Figure it out! Now, get downstairs at start up the furnace. I'll go after the bitch." 

Cas opened his mouth like he was about to argue, but then he clamped it shut again and shook his head. "Fine." He turned around on his heels and started out of the room.

"And hurry up," Dean called after him. He saw Cas' shoulders tense, but Cas didn't say anything before carefully opening the door and peering outside. The coast must have been clear, because he left the door swinging in his wake.

Dean took in a sharp breath, and considered staying put to let Dead Girl find him. Sitting down definitely sounded great, and it would help him save up his strength. But who knew how long that would take? He had to go find her. 

Firming his hold on his gun, he left the exam room.

The fluorescent lights in the hallway glared against the white walls, and Dean could hear their faint humming like a swarm of bees surrounding him. He rattled his head, trying to power through. He paced forward, one foot placed slowly in front of the other, and listened out for footsteps.

In the distance, a door creaked open.

Dean automatically spun in the direction of the noise, and he couldn’t tell if it had been a door at the end of this hallway or in the adjacent one leading to the reception area. 

He moved that way, slowly opening every door he passed. They were all empty. 

With every step he took, the headache in his temples unfurled more and more, and he had to consciously keep his feet from dragging and shoulders from slumping. His eyes felt bruised, and every time he closed them, his blinks became more prolonged. At one point, he had to slap himself in the face just to rally himself. 

He quickly turned into the adjacent hallway, rifle first, and the motion caused him to teeter off balance a little as a rush of blood jolted to his head. When he steadied himself, he realized that hallway was empty, too, and he could see right through to the door that led to reception.

“Come on, you bitch,” he muttered, walking further down the hall. He got about halfway before the pounding of footsteps echoed behind him.

He jerked around, finger on the trigger—and there was nothing but thin air.

He sighed, relaxing slightly.

And then he caught something in the security mirror in the corner. He had to squint to get the image in focus, his vision hazy with fatigue. He saw himself, gun in hand, but he wasn’t alone. There was a figure behind him, pale skin and dark hair.

He whipped around again, blasting off a pellet of rock salt before Dead Girl could take off. She didn’t move. The rock salt hit her square in the chest, and it did nothing. He lurched slightly in the kickback.

Dean blinked as the image before him became unfocused. He felt like he was looking through a kaleidoscope, the colors and shapes overlapping. He couldn’t get them to align no matter how he tried. The rifle was a weight in his hands, and then it gone, and he realized belatedly that he heard it clatter to the ground.

There were footsteps again, quick and short. And the Dead Girl was right in front of him in the time it took him to blink. Her mouth was still hanging open, eyes blank. 

“Cas!” Dean heard himself shout, the name echoing in his ears like it was coming from behind glass. He tried to backpedal, but all he did was stumble into the wall, a sharp pain shooting through his spine upon impact. Dead Girl stayed in the same spot, and he watched her slowly, movements jerking and joints snapping audibly, turn her neck towards him.

He wanted to slide down the wall. His knees were giving out on him, and there were pins and needles in his fingers and toes. He grunted, every movement an effort as he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his gun. He aimed it at Dead Girl and squeezed the trigger. He didn’t even know if he’d hit her, his arms were so unsteady. But half a dozen pops sounded off, the banging too big for the confined space, until his empty clip clicked. 

Dead Girl was gone. 

He took a second to catch his breath, feeling like he’d just sprinted a mile, and forced himself to stand up. He kept his hand on the wall to balance himself and blinked around, searching for any sign of the Kichkandi. 

He had to lead her towards the back of the building—to a stairwell or the elevators. He had to get her downstairs, but that was so far away, and he honestly didn’t know if he’d make it without collapsing, unconscious.

But there was another way he could go.

He fixed his sights on the door to the reception area, and mustered all his energy into getting there. 

It was harder than it should have been, just walking from point A to point B. When he made it into the room, the blue screensaver from the computer was bouncing off the walls to cast shadows in the corners of the room. Dean caught sight of the Impala on the opposite side of the parking lot outside the glass door. The rain was beating down on the sleek metal, and he blinked rapidly as the solid lines of the car went hazy in his swimming vision.

He had lighter fluid in the trunk. He had holy oil. If he could just get there, he could light Dead Girl up on the spot. He could end this.

As he rushed forward, he stumbled slightly as his legs turned lethargic under him. His limbs felt like weights, slowly pulling him down to the floor. He practically fell against the door when he reached it.

He pushed.

It didn’t budge.

Adrenaline failing, Dean slammed his shoulder against the glass, ignoring the hot band of pain that rippled through his body upon impact. He didn’t care if the door opened or the glass broke at this point. He just had to get out. He had to get the car. 

He put all his weight into it, his breath coming out in pants as the door stuck, and, “Fuck.”

He took out his gun and beat the butt of it against the tempered glass as hard as he could. It held.

Behind him, the door leading to the hallway opened up, a rectangle of white light filling the room momentarily before getting cut off again as the door closed. 

Dean breathed out, slumping against the door. Even inhaling was an effort.

_Cas_, the thought, prayed, and hoped it wouldn’t fall on deaf ears. _Cas_.

He wanted Cas. 

He wanted to go home, and go to sleep, and have Cas watch over him. He wanted Cas in his arms. He wanted Cas to save him so they could do just that. He didn’t want to turn into a friggin’ mummy. He didn’t want to die still pissed at Cas. There was supposed to be more time—more time for Dean to get over this, to put it behind them. More time for Dean to stop pushing him away.

He wanted that.

He wanted Cas. 

There were footsteps, slow this time. He guessed Dead Girl knew he wasn’t going anywhere. 

His vision blurred again, and the ringing in his ears kicked up a notch until all other sounds faded away. He thought it might blow out his eardrums. He hadn’t realized that he’d slid down the door until his cheek was pressed up against the cold, hard floor, and he spine might have rattled at the feeling, but what was the point? All of him felt cold—numb.

He felt his heart rate slowing in his chest and his mind go fuzzy around the edges. One of his legs kicked out in an involuntarily muscle spasm, but the adrenaline rush it provided dwindled instantly. 

Something came into his eye line. A foot. Pale. It was on backwards.

Dean blinked at it, and it took all the strength he had to lift his eyes up, until he reached Dead Girl’s face. It wasn’t void and expressionless anymore. She was staring down at him with fury.

Dean wanted to let his eyes slip closed.

He tried to call out again, but a cracked and weak noise was all that came out of his parched throat. He wanted to call out for Cas. And maybe Cas’ name would be the last word on his lips. Maybe it would be the last thing that crossed his mind before the blackness overcame him. Maybe Cas would hear him. 

Maybe he’d know that Dean was sorry, and stupid, and he never meant for things to get so bad. Maybe he already knew.

There was light. So white it was blue around the edges. The ringing in Dean’s ears overcame him. There was screaming. The light was pouring out of Dead Girl’s eyes, spilling from her gaping mouth. 

She crumpled to the floor in front of Dean, two burnt up sockets for eyes staring back at him. And he thought of Jack.

He gasped in, like the first breath after waking up. His pulse kicked back into life, at it gave him just enough energy to lift his head up.

And there was Cas. 

He was stumbling backwards a little, doubling over and breathing heavily as if the air had been knocked out of him. 

“Cas,” Dean eked out, and he wanted to lay back down again. To go to sleep. Because he was safe now. He was safe. Cas was there. He was safe. 

He forced himself to sit up. He did it in steps—bending his elbows, placing his palms on the floor, pushing himself up with a grunt. He swayed, thoughts tumbling dizzily until he found the door behind him. He leaned against it, and just breathed. In and out.

“Dean,” Cas said, voice low and rough. He stumbled forward, putting one arm in front of him to catch himself against the wall. Before Dean even knew what he was doing, he’d brought his hand up to fist at the end of Cas’ coat. He bunched up the material, gripping it like a lifeline, and skewed his eyes shut. 

“She dead?”

There was a pause into which Cas caught his breath. “I dunno,” he said. “I think the body is, but the spirit—it might still be here. Dean, my powers—.” 

Dean shook his head against the door. “Alright, it’s alright. We gotta get her down to the oven.” That sounded like a lot of work. He didn’t know if he could carry his own weight right now, much less a body. But he had to. They had to end this. 

He opened his eyes, lids still feeling like weights, and looked up at Cas. Cas was staring down at him, and he closed his mouth, nodding. He reached down in offering, and Dean took a second to muster himself before clapping his hand against Cas’ and allowing himself to be hauled up. 

He lost his balance, nausea overcoming him momentarily, and ended up slumped against Cas. His face was buried into Cas’ shoulder, the familiar scent of warmth and summer rain beneath sweat and formaldehyde. Cas tried to right Dean, to put him back fully on his feet, and Dean didn’t want to. His arms went around Cas’ middle, and he held him as tightly as he could manage—as closely. He just wanted this for a second. Just for a second. He wanted to allow himself to have this.

He knew the exact moment Cas realized what was happening. Cas’ body tensed, and then relaxed, and Dean felt him sigh out more than he heard it. One of Cas’ hands touched Dean’s shoulder blades—but the pressure was light, fleeting, like he didn’t know if he was supposed to hug back.

After a few long seconds, Dean pulled away, and planted his boots to the floor, bracing his knees until the world centered itself back on its axis. He looked down at Dead Girl, limp and sprawled at their feet. “I saw a gurney in the one of the rooms,” he remembered. 

Cas nodded. “I’ll get it. Stay with her.”

Dean swallowed past the rock in is throat, and his pulse leaped with sudden fright that the body would come back to life the second Cas left him alone with it. But it needed to be done. Both of them were two weak to carry her all the way downstairs. Even lifting her up onto a gurney might prove difficult, so he let Cas go, and kept his eyes fixed on the body the entire time he was gone.

Lifting Dead Girl was rough, and Dean almost expected her to sit up like she had on the morgue table as soon as they placed her down, but the body stayed limp and lifeless. He and Cas pushed the gurney down the halls, towards the freight elevator in the back of the building. 

The basement was dark, a single yellow fluorescent light fixture fighting the gloom that fell over the room. There was a cremator oven against the back wall, and Dean could see the flames dancing behind the small window in the metal door. There was a faint background hiss of wind beating off the fire.

He winched at the sudden onslaught of light and heat when Cas opened the door, but it almost felt nice. He still felt chilled down to the bone, and he wanted to warm himself against the flames. He wanted to go back to the motel and curl up under the blankets for a week, and he wanted Cas there with him, sharing his body heat.

Pushing that from his mind, he focused on the task at hand. They moved the body from the gurney to the oven drawer, and Dean stared down into her blank face once she was situated. She looked just like any other body. Pallid and unmoving. Normal. Dead. 

Dean thought he’d see that face in his nightmares for a while. 

“Dean?” he heard Cas whisper, and Dean shook himself out of his reverie. He looked over his shoulder, where Cas was blinking at him, his face in shadows as the orange light of the flames outlined his body. Dean stepped away from the body. 

“Good riddance,” he muttered, eyes still glued to her as Cas heaved the drawer back into the oven. It slid the rest of the way, the flames licking around the flesh and catching on the dark hair. Cas closed the door, slipping them back into the relative darkness. 

When Dean blinked, he could still see the fire consuming the body behind his eyelids.

///

The rain had stopped by the time the Impala jounced into the parking lot of the motel in town, its wheels kicking up water from a shallow puddle. The air still smelled ripe and damp, and the sunrise over the mountains lit up the world in golds and browns.

After Dead Girl was nothing but a pile of ash, Dean and Cas took every last body in the morgue, including the original two victims, and burned them, too. Hell, they burned everything, down to the last blood sample. They wanted to be sure the spirit didn’t have anything to latch onto—just in case it was still hanging around. 

But, over the phone, Sam assured them it wasn’t. The body had been burned, so the Kichkandi was gone for good. Dean would rather not chance it. They took the ashes to a church and buried them, just to be safe.

Sam said he was headed to the Fox’s house one last time to make sure everything was kosher. He said he might take the ashes that had started all this to the church, too, to be buried with the rest. And then the three of them needed to skip town before the morgue employees came knocking. 

But Dean figured he could catch at least an hour of shuteye while Sam was wrapping up business. It was better than nothing. His eyes were burning with exhaustion, and there was still that dull ache drumming in his temples from dehydration and a desperate need for rest. He’d probably crash the second his head hit the pillow. 

Next to him, Cas looked pretty worse for wear, too. Smiting the Kichkandi had taken a lot out of him, and the rest of the night hadn’t been easy, either. They both needed a minute to catch their breath.

Rubbing at his eye, Dean opened the door to their motel room, and his shoulders slumped gratefully at the sight of his bed, still made up from lack of use. He shrugged out of his jacket and took off his tie, but didn’t bother changing out of his clothes or even taking off his shoes. He wouldn’t be asleep for that long, anyway, and it wasn’t worth the effort.

“Oh, thank god,” he groaned, and he had just enough energy left to rush to the bed and collapse. He shoved his face into the pillow, not even caring that the case was starchy and smelled like cigarettes. The mattress was lumpy, too, but that shit might as well have been heaven. 

He rolled onto his back, and started situating himself into a comfortable position when he caught sight of Cas taking off his coat and suit jacket. He tugged at his tie, loosening it slightly. And Dean just watched him, letting his eyes lazily scan Cas up and down—his slouching posture, his messed up hair, the tired lines of his body.

Cas didn’t sleep, but he still needed to rebuild his strength. Sometimes—it felt like forever ago now—Cas would lay down with Dean and close his eyes. Meditating, he called it. Dean never really cared what it was called, only that he got to fall asleep and wake up in Cas’ arms.

“What is it?” Cas asked, his back still turned to Dean. His voice sounded rough, scratchy.

As weary as Dean was, he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep soundly without Cas next to him.

He didn’t really know why he said, “Nothin’.”

Cas turned around to face him, but he didn’t look like he was trying to pick a fight. “You were praying.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Because he wasn’t. He’d just been thinking. Remembering.

Cas walked up to the side of the bed and fixed Dean with a look. “You were . . . feeling.” He didn’t want to use the word longing. Dean was glad he didn’t. “It’s close enough.” 

“That case, I’m always praying,” Dean told him. He lifted his hand up and wrapped it around Cas’ wrist hanging loosely at his side. He gave it a weak tug, silently asking for what he was too proud to say out loud.

Cas got the message. And maybe he was just too damn tired to fight it, because he laid down easy at Dean’s side, and Dean rolled into him, pressing his nose into Cas’ collar.

A long time passed. He let his heartbeat settle, let his breathing quiet. Outside, the sound of tires on the street rushed by. Two people were chatting as they walked past the room. As the sun continued to rise, streaks of light came through the thin curtains, painting the room in a dark purple hue.

Dean said, “Nice to know you and me can still make a pretty good team. You know. When we need to.”

Cas let out a breath through his nose, his chest deflating. “Yes, it does,” he said. Dean’s fingers started idly playing with Cas’ tie. “Does it change anything?”

Dean’s hand stilled.

Honestly? He had no idea. And he really didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to think about it. He wanted the answer to be yes. But he didn’t know if he’d wake up from his nap, look at Cas, and remember everything that went wrong. He didn’t know if, in a clearer state of mind, he’d be able to look Cas in the face and not be reminded of his mom, or about what Jack did or about what Dean had almost done to him, or about Chuck, or anything else.

But, right at that second, he just didn’t want to have nightmares, and he always slept better when Cas was around.

He just didn’t know if he could hold on to both his anger and Cas at once. He knew, eventually, he’d have to let one go. 

And he kind of hoped it would be the anger. 

“Hey, you remember Halloween a few years back. With that witch? When you were gonna smite that whole town?” He didn’t really know why he said it. He didn’t even know what made him think of it. He guessed he was just trying to figure out how they ended up where they are now. 

He was just trying to figure out when everything went to shit, because maybe, if he remembered the times before it, they could get back there somehow. 

“The raising of Samhain,” Cas said. “Of course, I remember.” 

Dean pushed his face a little more into Cas’ neck, his words muffled against his shirt. “You remember the day after? At that park?” 

That’d been the first time he ever saw Cas as something other than some all-powerful electric storm of heavenly wrath. Something other than a supernatural creature that couldn’t be trusted. Something human.

That’d been the first time he ever saw Cas smile—the small, shy and hidden thing it was.

Cas’ voice was much quieter when he answered, “Yes.” 

Dean really didn’t know where he was going with that. 

He guessed he just wanted to remind Cas about it, too.

He spread his arm out across Cas’ torso, and snuggled up to him a little closer, settling in. “Just checking.” 

After a moment, he felt Cas’ lips on his hairline, and it was the only real thing. 

Dean let himself relax. He let his mind blank, let his limbs go heavy. Let the delta waves flooding his brain numb all sound and light and reason and emotion. Sam would be back soon, and he’d find the two of them like that, and Dean couldn’t bring himself to care. 

He fell into a deep sleep almost instantly, and he slept like the dead.


End file.
